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Teeth

On December 15, New York's Loisaida Center hosted a poetry reading in which current and former fellows of the national Latina/o poets workshop CantoMundo read from their work in solidarity with ongoing protests and mobilizations in and around Ferguson, Missouri, and the College of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Mexico. NACLA is publishing a series from the event.

María De Los Ángeles Pineda is dreaming of teeth

half- jaws snapping at her big toe pulling the covers

forcing her to feel the cool mountain wind

she has always preferred her city of asphalt over houses build in mud

thousands of bits of enamel taunting from the kitchen table

chattering in her soup rage boiling over

gripping the noodles perfectly forming a floating number 43

the broth bitter

María De Los Ángeles Pineda is finding teeth in her make up

pastel yellow blue and pink slowly turning brown

like the skin of the young men she never wanted to date in high school

red like the sidewalks on September 26th when

the rebellious received last rites from a rainstorm

molars hiding in her shoes hopping into handbags

incisors teaming up dragging 43 blood soaked book bags into her living room

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a tenured New York City educator, a 2014 BRIO award winner and CantoMundo Fellow. She is a two time International Latino Book Award winner and author of Conversations With My Skin and Homenaje A Las Guerreras / Homage to the Warrior Women. Peggy has been featured on HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, 2014 Voto Latino Power Summit, Poets and Writers Fifth Annual Connecting Cultures Reading, The BADD!ASS Women Festival, and other venues. She has been published in Letras, by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, The Bronx Memoir Project, Luna Luna Magazine, Upliftt.com, Dealmas.net, and Sofrito For Your Soul. For more information please visit Robleswrites.com.

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